surgical operation, surgical procedure, surgical process, surgery, operation - a medical procedure involving an incision with instruments; performed to repair damage or arrest disease in a living body; they will schedule the operation as soon as an operating room is available; he died while undergoing surgery.
A quarter mile is, by definition, a fourth of a mile. It is 1,320 feet or 402.3 meters. On a standard-sized Olympic track, it is a little more than a single lap.
The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 feet but the greater importance of furlongs in pre-modern England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards in 1593. This form of the mile then spread to the British-colonized nations who continue to employ the mile.